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Calling the iSeries (AS/400) legacy is a bit disingenuous. It is a currently developing system with features that aren't duplicated in the mainstream. At this

Calling the iSeries (AS/400) legacy is a bit disingenuous. It is a currently developing system with features that aren't duplicated in the mainstream. At this point, I honestly crave a Unix/Windows alternative to gain some popularity to break the tunnel vision of the industry.

300bps 5y ago
True curiosity - what features does an AS/400 have that aren’t duplicated in the mainstream?
- fulafel 5y ago
  Single level storage, for one - a flat 128 bit address space that covers storage and working memory.
Spooky23 5y ago
Are there any significant number of iSeries customers that are new? Does IBM have people pitching iSeries solutions? Like the mainframes, they are a great technology, but represent a business model that doesn’t really exist anymore.
pjmlp 5y ago
I think the tunnel vision has been breaking down via the "Cloud OS" that are running language runtimes directly no whatever, basically OS/360 has gone mainstream, but general public still think UNIX/Windows matter on the server room. Similarly the mobile OSes have more in common with such ideas, than classical desktop stacks.
- le-mark 5y ago
  I don’t think down voters are interpreting this post correctly. I read it as “serverless or function as a service” abstract away the particulars of the host operating system is a similar way that os360 did on the mainframe. It’s a valid point but not entirely accurate due to the limitations IBM mainframe cics requirement. They say they support other languages, but in reality it’s cobol.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Yes, that was my point. Naturally I am not speaking about OS/360 in particular, rather the vision that gave us type 1 hypervisors and hardware/OA agnostic runtimes. I am used to lack of vision, many seem to only understand what is shown running in front of them.
Accujack 5y ago
It's only software at this point, though. The AS/400 that the (short, detail-less) article talks about is very much legacy. Despite the compatibility IBM builds in, sometimes system hardware can't be updated or won't be updated. IBM kept the defining part of the system and merged it with high performing hardware that requires no separate business division to support.

300bps 5y ago

True curiosity - what features does an AS/400 have that aren’t duplicated in the mainstream?

fulafel 5y ago
Single level storage, for one - a flat 128 bit address space that covers storage and working memory.

Spooky23 5y ago

Are there any significant number of iSeries customers that are new? Does IBM have people pitching iSeries solutions? Like the mainframes, they are a great technology, but represent a business model that doesn’t really exist anymore.

pjmlp 5y ago

I think the tunnel vision has been breaking down via the "Cloud OS" that are running language runtimes directly no whatever, basically OS/360 has gone mainstream, but general public still think UNIX/Windows matter on the server room. Similarly the mobile OSes have more in common with such ideas, than classical desktop stacks.

le-mark 5y ago
I don’t think down voters are interpreting this post correctly. I read it as “serverless or function as a service” abstract away the particulars of the host operating system is a similar way that os360 did on the mainframe. It’s a valid point but not entirely accurate due to the limitations IBM mainframe cics requirement. They say they support other languages, but in reality it’s cobol.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Yes, that was my point. Naturally I am not speaking about OS/360 in particular, rather the vision that gave us type 1 hypervisors and hardware/OA agnostic runtimes. I am used to lack of vision, many seem to only understand what is shown running in front of them.

Accujack 5y ago

It's only software at this point, though. The AS/400 that the (short, detail-less) article talks about is very much legacy. Despite the compatibility IBM builds in, sometimes system hardware can't be updated or won't be updated. IBM kept the defining part of the system and merged it with high performing hardware that requires no separate business division to support.